Staff and students share their ideas for the Nature Park at the final Schools Forum session
This month saw the final gathering of the Nature Park Schools Forum, the result of several sessions where staff and students from across England have been giving their thoughts on how we can continue to develop the National Education Nature Park programme.
Over the last few months, the Schools Forum have been meeting both at the Museum and online for activities and workshops on topics including youth action, nature and wellbeing and nature in the classroom. They’ve developed three key principles to guide future development of the Nature Park programme to make it even better for young people, staff and the wider school community:
- Lifelong principle: Nature Park should help children and young people connect with nature throughout their school life, from the youngest to the oldest years
- Wellbeing principle: Nature Park should help each young person involved understand nature is always there for you no matter how you are feeling
- Active learning principle: Nature Park activities should help young people learn through active experiences of observing, exploring and investigating nature themselves, teaching topics that inspire awe and wonder of nature
The fifth and last session saw the Schools Forum meet at the Natural History Museum for a day packed full of activities to summarise their experiences so far. The group were joined by the team from Earth Minutes, who gave a brilliant workshop on storytelling to guide the group on how to communicate their ideas and the three principles generated through the Forum. After a speedy script writing session, students from each stepped in front of the camera to present their ideas. Watch this space for the resulting video – we’re pretty sure we’ve got some future presenters in our midst as well as nature champions!
With filming completed, staff and students went on some more exciting learning experiences around the Museum, including a relaxed explore of some of the Nature Park team’s favourite galleries and an adventure into the depths of the building to see many pickled specimens in the Spirit Collection! Importantly, the day ended with a workshop on ‘what’s next for the principles’, so the Schools Forum could chat to Nature Park staff about how their ideas will be turned into reality.
“It’s been a joy to watch staff and students from all corners of the country share their experiences and opinions with MPs, the Nature Park team and Department for Education staff. Listening to the Schools Forum and helping to craft the principles has been amazing, and these will help us put lifelong nature connection, wellbeing and active learning front and centre of the Nature Park programme.”
Yogi Nagam, Projects and Partnerships Officer for the National Education Nature Park who has led the Schools Forum.
The group were also visited by Stephen Morgan, Minister for Early Education at the Department for Education and Joe Powell, MP for Kensington and Bayswater. The group told Minister Morgan all about how they’ve been using the Nature Park programme in their schools. He spoke about the importance of nature and climate and education and explained how programmes like the Nature Park are part of the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy – a plan to embed climate and nature in the education system.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to the staff and students who’ve taken part in the Schools Forum and have shared their opinions and ideas on how we can make the Nature Park even better for all young people and their school. We’ve learned so much from the Schools Forum and will be using the three agreed principles to guide our work going forward.”
Dr Jess Tipton, Head of the National Education Nature Park
